


Words That Bind

by prototyping



Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, I just want reasons for him to be really soft ok, Post-Canon, Romance, also surprisingly happy coming from me, lots of fluff, see? I can do it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-12 02:36:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19219849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prototyping/pseuds/prototyping
Summary: Mikleo has never put much stock in the idea of words over actions. Apparently he just needed the right incentive. [Mikleo/Alisha]





	Words That Bind

Mikleo rarely found reason to hold back his words around her anymore, and even less to feel nervous—and yet for the last few days he’d done just that, looking for the right opportunity to speak his thoughts but finding none, or coming up with an excuse to remain silent whenever the chance did appear.

Today seemed determined to be the day. His afternoon with Alisha over tea stretched into evening, first as a walk around the nobles’ quarter, and then the town, and then back to the library of her manor where they were now. Neither of them had spoken for about ten minutes, but it was a comfortable silence, content in the way they sat hip-to-hip with their hands loosely joined in her lap, her head perched casually on his shoulder.

There seemed no better time to voice what he’d been stewing over for the past week. The thought was supported by Alisha suddenly climbing to her feet, crossing the room, and then returning with a worn-looking book as thick as his forearm.

“I’m afraid I forgot to give this to you last time. It’s reportedly the primary source of information for Rolance’s scholars who study the Ancient Tongue.” She smiled sheepishly. “A seraph may perhaps find it outdated, but… I thought it might be of interest to you.”

Mikleo’s look of surprise was quickly replaced with a similar warm expression. He stood up as he accepted it, inwardly marveling at the lettering on the cover. It couldn’t have been less than a century old, surely. “I doubt something like this would come cheap,” he remarked, eyeing her uncertainly.

“Indeed,” she agreed coolly. “But one of the teachers at the Pendrago academy is a good colleague of mine. When I mentioned that someone dear to me had an interest in the language…” Her face colored slightly. “...she was more than happy to give me this copy, in exchange for a donation to the institute.”

It was clear Alisha didn’t regret her choice, and that she was pleased by his reaction. Calling the decision into doubt would be pointless, not to mention ungrateful. 

“Thanks. That was thoughtful of you.” The look of open appreciation on his face was a rare one, making Alisha’s smile grow.

“You’re very welcome. I was thinking, perhaps—if you had time—you might help me learn some of it? I know it’s supposed to be notoriously difficult,” she added quickly, “and I wouldn’t ask that much of you, but—to know even a little of the language would be…” Mikleo watched her struggle for the right word, probably too practical to say _useful_ but too self-conscious to admit it would just be a fun thing to learn.

He set the tome aside and assured her, “I’d like that.” Despite his easy smile, he took a moment longer than necessary to turn back to her, his thoughts rapidly tumbling over one another—but as soon as he saw her grateful expression, his doubts dissipated. He knew what he wanted to do—and he knew he could trust her to hear him out.

“Why don’t I teach you something now?” he offered. “Something easy to start with.”

That curved her soft lips into a look of happy surprise. “What might that be?”

Without meaning to, Mikleo held his breath. “My True Name.”

The made her tilt her head a fraction. “Your…”

“I know that you’ve heard it before,” he added quickly. “But still. I want…” Despite his determination, his voice dropped a little shyly. “I want to tell it to you. Myself.”

He could tell she didn’t quite understand the sentiment—maybe he didn’t, either; maybe it wasn’t that important, maybe he was overestimating the significance of the gesture—but after a couple heartbeats Alisha’s expression eased into another smile. She leaned forward and kissed the corner of his mouth, beaming all the brighter when she drew back.

“Please do,” she implored warmly.

That made him feel bolder. Still, Mikleo dropped his gaze again as he gently gathered her hands between his—taking his time, appreciating every second. He’d learned from the past.

Alisha waited patiently, still with the smile of her namesake. She was used to his pauses by now.

When he looked up again he felt her tense slightly, her expression a little more serious as she studied him. She had mentioned before that he had a habit of wearing an intense look on his face when focused—a look, she said, that she liked, but which also gave her the impression that he could see to places she couldn’t. At his puzzled stare she’d chuckled the thought away and told him to pay it no mind.

He stepped closer until they were flush, their joined hands caught comfortably between their chests. He felt her pulse in her delicate wrists, faint but quick.

His palm settled lightly against her warm cheek. She leaned into the touch, relaxed and trusting, and the feeling melted into him through the contact: Mikleo felt the last of his self-conscious uncertainty evaporate.

His touch moved beneath her chin. At his slight pressure she tilted her head up, patiently following his guidance. Trusting him, as she always did. The headstrong princess and formidable knight, the indomitable politician she had become, was softer beneath her layers of resilience than even he had guessed in those first couple years of knowing her. She loved touch, loved affection, and she loved him most of all.

Even now he was still surprised by how much he affected her, how quickly and completely her public face fell away when he was the center of her focus like this—how vulnerable she let herself become around him. His hands could hold hers and give her strength, or they could touch everything else and make her weak. It went both ways, but a part of him was ever amazed—grateful—that this trusting side of her existed, and only around himself.

He watched her eyes close as he leaned in, heard her soft, sharp inhale just before he kissed her. She responded, but barely, letting him lead and come to her and kiss her as tenderly as he wanted. He did so once, twice, and then he lingered in place, feeling their breaths mingle and the curious brush of her nose to his cheek as she waited.

Mikleo kissed her again, perhaps the gentlest he ever had. When he spoke, their lips only just grazed.

“Luzrov,” he murmured.

Her fingers tightened with a small shiver. Another kiss, the same as the last, speaking the word against her skin and breathing it into her. Giving it to her.

“Rulay.”

Sorey had been the first person, besides himself, to say it out loud.

Mikleo was five when Gramps explained what a Name was, when he finally realized the meaning of those two words that had been nestled in the back of his mind for as long as he could remember. He was ten, maybe eleven when he gave it to Sorey, a much more casual exchange following a close call with a cave-in and half-dragging each other out of the ruins afterwards, scraped and bruised and exhausted but laughing with adrenaline-laced relief. They’d collapsed on the cool grass and watched the stars and caught their breaths, and when Mikleo spoke up half an hour later—maybe still lightheaded with excitement, maybe glad to be alive, maybe painfully and finally aware of what mortality really meant, he couldn’t remember now—it was to give Sorey his Name.

Sorey had repeated it once, quietly and thoughtfully, memorizing it. He didn’t say it again for seven years.

Following the countless times it had been used in Armatization, Mikleo figured he was now long past desensitized to the self-conscious feeling that accompanied someone else saying it, even when they did so for the first time.

The moment Alisha said it, he realized he’d thought wrong.

She took his face in her hands and touched foreheads, her breath warm on his skin, and then her lips warm on his as they brushed and she repeated the name, his Name, in a low whisper that made his heart skip and his face heat up and shook him to his core in a way he couldn’t define.

She kissed him, said it again, and then did both: mimicking him, pressing the words to his mouth, as if to give them back—except he didn’t want them back, he just wanted _her_ , as he had for so long and always, always would—

He cupped her elbows in his hands and kissed her, stilling her voice. It was slow and deep and telling and Alisha matched his pace, tilting him towards her and tugging him closer. She took a little of her usual authority back to encourage a firmer, mutual kiss, taking his breath away right up until she withdrew with a low gasp—

“Say mine.”

It was quiet but confident, a statement but a request, even though it lacked her usual formality.

Mikleo hesitated. She stroked his cheek and smiled—and in it there was none of the weight he was expecting, no unspoken regret that he was so used to seeing, no wistful shades of _what if_ reignited by the memory of where her Name came from. That smile was _for him_ and she wanted to hear her Name _from him_. No one else.

His hands moved behind her, slowly following the curve of her back down to her hips, buying a little time as he recalled the words and tested the sound of them in his mind first. Alisha’s fingers grasped his shoulders as he kissed her cheek, her jaw, down the side of her neck and back up again—slowly enough to feel her tense, but generously enough that she wasn’t impatient.

Rather than her mouth again—he wasn’t giving her the Name, after all, since she already owned it—he kissed beside her ear and then, softly, spoke into it, instead giving her his voice and the first time that he had ever spoken these words out loud.

“Melphis Amekia.”

In a way it was their first night all over again, an exchange more personal than he could put into words. It was new and strange and bittersweet and wonderful. It was something they couldn’t take back, a part of themselves they chose to give regardless because they knew there would be no regret—because they knew exactly who they wanted to give it to.

Alisha slipped her arms around him and held tight. Her grip was firm without being desperate, and she didn’t linger so long that she might have been hiding her face. When she finally pulled away, there was nothing but affection and contentment in her eyes and her smile.

There was still a shadow over them both, a mutual pain that connected them—but this was the first time Mikleo felt it pulling them closer rather than keeping them an arm’s length apart.


End file.
